COVID-19 in Trinidad & Tobago (Local Updates & Discussions Only)

[pugboy]

the worst is them garbage bin with spring lid which hard to press open , you does end up touching the nasty lid

Public restrooms should install something like this
https://www.stepnpull.com/

Screenshot 2020-02-01 at 2.21.13 PM.jpg

[redmanjp]

ppl shouldn't forget about the flu though- that already kill dozens of ppl right here and will increase due to carnival

[VexXx Dogg]

There is currently a Global backorder of n95 masks eh.

[maj. tom]

the worst is them garbage bin with spring lid which hard to press open , you does end up touching the nasty lid

Public restrooms should install something like this
https://www.stepnpull.com/

Screenshot 2020-02-01 at 2.21.13 PM.jpg

This door contraption is completely unnecessary if they have brass doorknobs, like they used to in all hospitals and most public places. There was a reason for that. Cu and Zn have a natural antibiotic/bactericidal effect. Silver is another effective one which was widely used to treat bacterial STDs (gonorrhea), and why silverware was so valued for dining instruments. Copper/brass water pots are very valuable in rural India and Africa where there is no running water, because the copper sterilizes contaminated ground and river water within hours of standing.

Seems like this effect has been largely forgotten in modern medicine since the widespread use of common antibiotics. You can still see a few old green oxidized ornate doorknobs in lost places in POSGH and older British buildings.


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oligodynamic_effect
https://www.tested.com/science/life/453 ... -bacteria/

[FordeG]

Haven't been here in months, but I for one fully support the canceling of Carnival.

I can't wait till God strikes down all these masqueraders with the disease. It has been foretold in the bible that this one of the signs of the end of times. And it starts with the immoral and unjust in our society.

Play mas and infect us all, I can't wait to see you drop like flies after.

[FordeG]

It is being told that the death rate is MUCH higher than SARS and China is covering it up, both in the numbers and severity.

Also, expect all world powers to hide this, not just China. They will hide these plagues that Biblical prophecy foretold as long as they can.

[Miktay]

^^ biblical plagues done reach....

[Gladiator]

Allyuh god real wicked dred... Ethiopia now seeing its way after decades of famine and starvation and now this

[matr1x]

Captain tripps for the win....

[screwbash]

ah hope to see the pm and other cabinet minister winin up in a band come carnival monday and tuesday as years gone by. or will they hide for their own safety. conveniently they might have to be out of the country like when sheit hit the fan in 1990 and bas and others conveniently was out of the country.

[shake d livin wake d dead]

China reports H5N1 bird flu outbreak in another province...da fork

[hydroep]

Student returns to T&T from China: I was screened, cleared
Anna-Lisa Paul

Three days af­ter Health Min­is­ter Ter­rence Deyals­ingh an­nounced a 14-day trav­el re­stric­tion on ar­riv­ing pas­sen­gers from Chi­na, a lo­cal stu­dent has re­turned home and was re­unit­ed with her fam­i­ly af­ter she says she was screened and cleared by im­mi­gra­tion.

The stu­dent said she was not "flagged" with any flu-like symp­toms.

The 20-year-old woman from east Trinidad, who is a sec­ond-year stu­dent at the New York Uni­ver­si­ty, Shang­hai, ar­rived at the Pi­ar­co In­ter­na­tion­al Air­port close to mid­night on Fri­day.

The schol­ar­ship re­cip­i­ent’s re­turn to Shang­hai one week ago co­in­cid­ed with the Chi­nese New Year which was cel­e­brat­ed on Jan­u­ary 25.

How­ev­er, hours af­ter land­ing in Chi­na, she was in­formed that class­es had been post­poned in­def­i­nite­ly fol­low­ing the spread of the coro­n­avirus which orig­i­nat­ed in the Wuhan province. Wuhan is ap­prox­i­mate­ly an eight-hour train ride from the stu­dent’s lo­ca­tion in Shang­hai.

The soft-spo­ken stu­dent said up­on land­ing in Chi­na, every­one was in­struct­ed to main­tain a self-im­posed iso­la­tion and as such, she re­mained locked in her dorm un­til de­cid­ing to re­turn home to T&T.

Re­quest­ing her name not be pub­lished, the So­cial Sci­ences stu­dent trav­elled from Shang­hai to Tokyo, then to Texas and fi­nal­ly T&T.

Screened a to­tal of three times, the woman said she was cur­rent­ly sat­is­fied with the in­ter­na­tion­al and lo­cal screen­ing pro­ce­dures she had un­der­gone.

How­ev­er, she added that while T&T had ac­ti­vat­ed screen­ing pro­ce­dures, she was un­cer­tain if this would be enough as the sit­u­a­tion con­tin­ues to un­fold.

“In the air­ports that I have passed through in the US and Tokyo, it’s pret­ty okay be­cause they are do­ing what every­one is do­ing at the mo­ment. I am not too sure as the whole sit­u­a­tion pro­gress­es if it will be enough be­cause I know def­i­nite­ly that the oth­er air­ports are re­al­ly crack­ing down on every­thing.”

'I con­sid­er my­self lucky'

Re­fer­ring to the bans on ar­riv­ing Chi­nese na­tion­als by var­i­ous coun­tries around the world, the stu­dent said, “I be­lieve I wasn't flagged be­cause I didn’t show any signs. I haven’t been sick from the time I ar­rived in Shang­hai, to the time I left.”

“I used my mask from the mo­ment I left my dorm in Shang­hai, straight un­til my ar­rival in Hous­ton. Up­on ar­riv­ing, there was bare­ly any­one us­ing masks and I was in­struct­ed by the im­mi­gra­tion of­fi­cer to re­move it so they could see my face. But no one had any health con­cerns with it. They weren’t even us­ing masks.”

In­di­cat­ing she was lucky to have been al­lowed to go home by lo­cal au­thor­i­ties, she said, “I prayed from the mo­ment I heard what they were go­ing to do that un­til I came, so yes, I con­sid­er my­self lucky.”

Ap­plaud­ing Gov­ern­ment for im­ple­ment­ing the de­ci­sion to re­strict vis­i­tors from Chi­na in a bid to pro­tect the lo­cal pop­u­la­tion, she claimed, “It is re­al­ly scary for the peo­ple that are ac­tu­al­ly just try­ing to get back home be­cause I def­i­nite­ly know there are Trinida­di­ans in Chi­na who prob­a­bly have not ar­rived home as yet, and when they do, they will prob­a­bly be placed in quar­an­tine.”

Asked to de­scribe the at­mos­phere back in Chi­na, she said, “When I ar­rived back in Chi­na, there was bare­ly any cel­e­bra­tions at all. It was just qui­et and if any­one was out, they were wear­ing masks. I think peo­ple were just try­ing to iso­late them­selves.”

Asked if the sit­u­a­tion was as bad as was be­ing re­port­ed, she said, “I don’t be­lieve it’s as bad as it’s be­ing made out to be.”

Point­ing to the fact that Shang­hai has a pop­u­la­tion of just over 24 mil­lion, the stu­dent claimed, “There are prob­a­bly 100 cas­es in Shang­hai.”

“Every­thing is in Wuhan and they are on lock­down. The au­thor­i­ties stopped pub­lic trans­porta­tion and peo­ple are re­al­ly try­ing their best to be safe. Noth­ing is go­ing on and every­where is closed. There is no hys­te­ria at all.

“I don’t think us in Trinidad have that much to wor­ry about, main­ly be­cause per capi­ta, it’s a re­al­ly re­al­ly slim sta­tis­ti­cal chance. Once we stay clean, wash our hands, we should be pret­ty safe.”

Ac­knowl­edg­ing the in­flux of vis­i­tors be­ing ex­pect­ed for Car­ni­val, the stu­dent urged every­one to main­tain a strict lev­el of clean­li­ness and per­son­al hy­giene to min­imise the spread of the virus.

In­di­cat­ing her moth­er had been “pan­icky and very wor­ried,” the stu­dent smiled as she re­mem­bered tak­ing calls at least three times a day.

Briefly com­ment­ing on the sit­u­a­tion and hav­ing her daugh­ter back home, the moth­er said she was re­lieved her youngest child had not been de­tained by the au­thor­i­ties.

Health Min­is­ter says quar­an­tine mea­sures in place at Cau­ra

Com­ment­ing on the stu­dent's ar­rival, Health Min­is­ter Ter­rence Deyals­ingh said while he was not aware of that spe­cif­ic pas­sen­ger, he was con­fi­dent that the stu­dent would have been sub­ject­ed to all screen­ing mea­sures that they had put in place.

He said this coun­try’s air­ports and sea­ports have all been locked down in a bid to de­tect and iso­late po­ten­tial cas­es of the coro­n­avirus.

And while he has as­sured that quar­an­tine mech­a­nisms are in place at the Cau­ra Hos­pi­tal to fa­cil­i­tate the iso­la­tion of such peo­ple, he is op­ti­mistic that ear­ly pre­ven­tion mea­sures would be suc­cess­ful to stop the en­try of the virus in­to T&T.

Re­spond­ing to ques­tions from re­porters Sat­ur­day at the Mt Hope Wom­ens’ Clin­ic, Deyals­ingh re­in­forced the an­nounce­ment by Cab­i­net last Thurs­day to sub­ject peo­ple ar­riv­ing in T&T from Chi­na to a 14-day re­stric­tion which would cov­er the ex­pect­ed vi­ral in­cu­ba­tion pe­ri­od.

This means that ar­riv­ing pas­sen­gers will not be al­lowed to en­ter T&T un­til a 14-day pe­ri­od has elapsed.

He claimed, “Since we an­nounced the 14-day win­dow, Ja­maica has fol­lowed suit. The Cruise Ship Al­liance, which is a glob­al al­liance, has now used that. The US has now come and said any­one com­ing in from Chi­na will be quar­an­tined for 14 days.”

Con­firm­ing the me­dia would be in­vit­ed to view the ther­mal screen­ing pro­ce­dures at the air­port on Fri­day, Deyals­ingh said the tour would in­clude a trip to the quar­an­tine fa­cil­i­ty at Cau­ra Hos­pi­tal.

The min­is­ter said Chi­nese au­thor­i­ties had al­ready is­sued na­tion­al no­tices ad­vis­ing peo­ple that any­one leav­ing the coun­try would do so at their own risk.

Deyals­ingh said, “It is bet­ter if you are in Chi­na and well, to stay there.”

He said it was much eas­i­er to self-iso­late your­self in Chi­na than to go on a plane and risk ex­pos­ing hun­dreds more to the virus.

He said all for­eign em­bassies in Chi­na were be­ing pro­vid­ed with the nec­es­sary sup­plies to treat their lo­cal who live and work in the coun­try.

Deyals­ingh said, “So far, there is no lo­cal Trinida­di­an or To­bag­on­ian who has come down with the virus in Chi­na.”

On Thurs­day, the World Health Or­gan­i­sa­tion de­clared the virus an in­ter­na­tion­al emer­gency.

The death toll in Chi­na has so far ex­ceed­ed 250...

https://www.guardian.co.tt/news/student-returns-to-tt-from-china-i-was--screened-cleared-6.2.1044932.ee2aa9ce64

[paid_influencer]

MaxPower on d ball with this one. The stinkness and nastiness of the average Trinidadian will be our undoing.

People regularly hawk and spit in the street. That is a whole load of virus being aerosolized from the most infectious part of the body. People regularly handle money and then buy/sell food. Tell most Trinidadians to wash their hands, and is a two second splash in water (no soap) them talking about.

[Devourment]

Hi all,

I'm sort of an epidemiologist with  my PhD being based on infectious tropical diseases.

So right, just to clear up a few points being stated here.

Trinidad is at a very low risk for this disease, until there's an outbreak in the US, Caribbean, NY, FL or Toronto. Thus far there is a very low chance of outbreaks in those countries given the awareness of the virus.

Banning Chinese nationals and quarantining those with flu like symptoms is the right course of action.

The government is following advice from professionals and WHO guidelines. Once they do, we are doing the best we can. Though if we do have an outbreak we are woefully under prepared.

No country has shut down their borders, only to China which makes sense.

This disease spreads from coughing via droplets, it's not truly airborne (the range is small). To get this virus you need to be coughed on, on your mouth. Another way is by putting your hands in your mouth after touching a surface or after residue lands on it.

Now onto the carnival debate. Aside from the logistics of cancelling it, it's not a good idea for many many reasons (unless the places I listed above experience an outbreak which is unlikely as their quarantine procedures are great).
1. Carnival isn't nearly as bad as a crowded NY Street. Outdoors are generally much lower risk for spreading this virus.
2. It is laughable that we think 30-50k visitors for Carnival is risky when cities in the US, Canada and Europe have hundreds of thousands of visitors arriving daily, many from China as well.
3. I've noticed the 'cancel carnival' crowd are UNC or carnival haters. There is a political motive. Though it's funny that the opposition has so far not said such. It makes one wonder if the owners of many carnival bands and promoters have close UNC ties (hint they do).
4. Diseases like this don't spread in areas like malls and streets easily (unless really crowded like NY or London). It's close prolonged contact, the kind you have when living or working with someone. Not at all when playing mass unless you coughing or spitting on people (please don't).
5. Think of an island like Barbados, generally on a normal week they have a lot more tourists arriving than we do for Carnival. Their tourists come from all over the world. If they aren't overly concerned then why are we so worried about Carnival? It's confusing when you look at the numbers to understand the level of unjustified panic.
6. If it comes here, cancelling carnival will make almost no difference since it's equally or more likely it'll come here from a random visitor outside of Carnival week. No offense but most expat trinis coming for Carnival are less likely to be exposed to someone with the virus than the average tourists or business traveller.
7. Cancelling or turning back the carnival visitors is impossible since flights are already booked. Perhaps we should close our borders add that's the only practical measure of you want to be extreme (so far no country has done this).
8. Postponing Carnival makes no sense because it's likely the diseases may have small out breaks in the US, UK and Canada by then. If we didn't get it by May, pushing Carnival back to May actually makes it more likely we'll get it then add the spread will be far more in the next couple months.

That is all, if you have any questions about this please ask.

[gastly369]

Nice write up

Hi all,

I'm sort of an epidemiologist with  my PhD being based on infectious tropical diseases.

So right, just to clear up a few points being stated here.

Trinidad is at a very low risk for this disease, until there's an outbreak in the US, Caribbean, NY, FL or Toronto. Thus far there is a very low chance of outbreaks in those countries given the awareness of the virus.

Banning Chinese nationals and quarantining those with flu like symptoms is the right course of action.

The government is following advice from professionals and WHO guidelines. Once they do, we are doing the best we can. Though if we do have an outbreak we are woefully under prepared.

No country has shut down their borders, only to China which makes sense.

This disease spreads from coughing via droplets, it's not truly airborne (the range is small). To get this virus you need to be coughed on, on your mouth. Another way is by putting your hands in your mouth after touching a surface or after residue lands on it.

Now onto the carnival debate. Aside from the logistics of cancelling it, it's not a good idea for many many reasons (unless the places I listed above experience an outbreak which is unlikely as their quarantine procedures are great).
1. Carnival isn't nearly as bad as a crowded NY Street. Outdoors are generally much lower risk for spreading this virus.
2. It is laughable that we think 30-50k visitors for Carnival is risky when cities in the US, Canada and Europe have hundreds of thousands of visitors arriving daily, many from China as well.
3. I've noticed the 'cancel carnival' crowd are UNC or carnival haters. There is a political motive. Though it's funny that the opposition has so far not said such. It makes one wonder if the owners of many carnival bands and promoters have close UNC ties (hint they do).
4. Diseases like this don't spread in areas like malls and streets easily (unless really crowded like NY or London). It's close prolonged contact, the kind you have when living or working with someone. Not at all when playing mass unless you coughing or spitting on people (please don't).
5. Think of an island like Barbados, generally on a normal week they have a lot more tourists arriving than we do for Carnival. Their tourists come from all over the world. If they aren't overly concerned then why are we so worried about Carnival? It's confusing when you look at the numbers to understand the level of unjustified panic.
6. If it comes here, cancelling carnival will make almost no difference since it's equally or more likely it'll come here from a random visitor outside of Carnival week. No offense but most expat trinis coming for Carnival are less likely to be exposed to someone with the virus than the average tourists or business traveller.
7. Cancelling or turning back the carnival visitors is impossible since flights are already booked. Perhaps we should close our borders add that's the only practical measure of you want to be extreme (so far no country has done this).
8. Postponing Carnival makes no sense because it's likely the diseases may have small out breaks in the US, UK and Canada by then. If we didn't get it by May, pushing Carnival back to May actually makes it more likely we'll get it then add the spread will be far more in the next couple months.

That is all, if you have any questions about this please ask.

[Cantmis]

https://www.cnn.com/2020/02/02/asia/wuh ... index.html

[MaxPower]

What about banning Trinis into other countries?

Isnt littering also a form of contamination?

[88sins]

What about banning Maxipad into trinituner and other web forums in other countries?

Isnt Maxipad also a form of contamination/virus/plague/never ending diarrhea?

Fixed it for you.

You're welcome.

[j.o.e]

Hi all,

I'm sort of an epidemiologist with  my PhD being based on infectious tropical diseases.

So right, just to clear up a few points being stated here.

Trinidad is at a very low risk for this disease, until there's an outbreak in the US, Caribbean, NY, FL or Toronto. Thus far there is a very low chance of outbreaks in those countries given the awareness of the virus.

Banning Chinese nationals and quarantining those with flu like symptoms is the right course of action.

The government is following advice from professionals and WHO guidelines. Once they do, we are doing the best we can. Though if we do have an outbreak we are woefully under prepared.

No country has shut down their borders, only to China which makes sense.

This disease spreads from coughing via droplets, it's not truly airborne (the range is small). To get this virus you need to be coughed on, on your mouth. Another way is by putting your hands in your mouth after touching a surface or after residue lands on it.

Now onto the carnival debate. Aside from the logistics of cancelling it, it's not a good idea for many many reasons (unless the places I listed above experience an outbreak which is unlikely as their quarantine procedures are great).
1. Carnival isn't nearly as bad as a crowded NY Street. Outdoors are generally much lower risk for spreading this virus.
2. It is laughable that we think 30-50k visitors for Carnival is risky when cities in the US, Canada and Europe have hundreds of thousands of visitors arriving daily, many from China as well.
3. I've noticed the 'cancel carnival' crowd are UNC or carnival haters. There is a political motive. Though it's funny that the opposition has so far not said such. It makes one wonder if the owners of many carnival bands and promoters have close UNC ties (hint they do).
4. Diseases like this don't spread in areas like malls and streets easily (unless really crowded like NY or London). It's close prolonged contact, the kind you have when living or working with someone. Not at all when playing mass unless you coughing or spitting on people (please don't).
5. Think of an island like Barbados, generally on a normal week they have a lot more tourists arriving than we do for Carnival. Their tourists come from all over the world. If they aren't overly concerned then why are we so worried about Carnival? It's confusing when you look at the numbers to understand the level of unjustified panic.
6. If it comes here, cancelling carnival will make almost no difference since it's equally or more likely it'll come here from a random visitor outside of Carnival week. No offense but most expat trinis coming for Carnival are less likely to be exposed to someone with the virus than the average tourists or business traveller.
7. Cancelling or turning back the carnival visitors is impossible since flights are already booked. Perhaps we should close our borders add that's the only practical measure of you want to be extreme (so far no country has done this).
8. Postponing Carnival makes no sense because it's likely the diseases may have small out breaks in the US, UK and Canada by then. If we didn't get it by May, pushing Carnival back to May actually makes it more likely we'll get it then add the spread will be far more in the next couple months.

That is all, if you have any questions about this please ask.

Thanks for posting this. It will be ignored because tuner likes drama, hype and paranoia (add some self hate and anti govt sentiment to taste)

[Devourment]

Hi all,

I'm sort of an epidemiologist with  my PhD being based on infectious tropical diseases.

So right, just to clear up a few points being stated here.

Trinidad is at a very low risk for this disease, until there's an outbreak in the US, Caribbean, NY, FL or Toronto. Thus far there is a very low chance of outbreaks in those countries given the awareness of the virus.

Banning Chinese nationals and quarantining those with flu like symptoms is the right course of action.

The government is following advice from professionals and WHO guidelines. Once they do, we are doing the best we can. Though if we do have an outbreak we are woefully under prepared.

No country has shut down their borders, only to China which makes sense.

This disease spreads from coughing via droplets, it's not truly airborne (the range is small). To get this virus you need to be coughed on, on your mouth. Another way is by putting your hands in your mouth after touching a surface or after residue lands on it.

Now onto the carnival debate. Aside from the logistics of cancelling it, it's not a good idea for many many reasons (unless the places I listed above experience an outbreak which is unlikely as their quarantine procedures are great).
1. Carnival isn't nearly as bad as a crowded NY Street. Outdoors are generally much lower risk for spreading this virus.
2. It is laughable that we think 30-50k visitors for Carnival is risky when cities in the US, Canada and Europe have hundreds of thousands of visitors arriving daily, many from China as well.
3. I've noticed the 'cancel carnival' crowd are UNC or carnival haters. There is a political motive. Though it's funny that the opposition has so far not said such. It makes one wonder if the owners of many carnival bands and promoters have close UNC ties (hint they do).
4. Diseases like this don't spread in areas like malls and streets easily (unless really crowded like NY or London). It's close prolonged contact, the kind you have when living or working with someone. Not at all when playing mass unless you coughing or spitting on people (please don't).
5. Think of an island like Barbados, generally on a normal week they have a lot more tourists arriving than we do for Carnival. Their tourists come from all over the world. If they aren't overly concerned then why are we so worried about Carnival? It's confusing when you look at the numbers to understand the level of unjustified panic.
6. If it comes here, cancelling carnival will make almost no difference since it's equally or more likely it'll come here from a random visitor outside of Carnival week. No offense but most expat trinis coming for Carnival are less likely to be exposed to someone with the virus than the average tourists or business traveller.
7. Cancelling or turning back the carnival visitors is impossible since flights are already booked. Perhaps we should close our borders add that's the only practical measure of you want to be extreme (so far no country has done this).
8. Postponing Carnival makes no sense because it's likely the diseases may have small out breaks in the US, UK and Canada by then. If we didn't get it by May, pushing Carnival back to May actually makes it more likely we'll get it then add the spread will be far more in the next couple months.

That is all, if you have any questions about this please ask.

Thanks for posting this. It will be ignored because tuner likes drama, hype and paranoia (add some self hate and anti govt sentiment to taste)

Yes indeed, I understand the fear but it's not based on actual data or statistics. It's just alarmist and reactionary and another reason to bash the government (I'm no PNM).

Reality is, yes having Carnival does increase the risk, but it's no more risky (actually less risky) than most day to day operations in most first world countries. If you want to know why it's because in most first world countries, cities are more cramped, crowded and public transport is far more common.

You can't shut down borders and be overly paranoid when things like this happen. WHO has done a lot of research into how to quash outbreaks without disrupting economies.

Take is serious of course! That's what I spent years researching, though tropical diseases are very different.

But trinis I'm seeing on Facebook seem to think this thing is worse than Ebola and after carnival people going to drop down dead. No, stop being idiots.

If there is an outbreak I'm confident it can be contained with little to no fatalities.

In a way, having Carnival is good because we'll be extra proactive in trying to detect the virus, if we cancel it expect everyone to be complacent and then we miss the early signs to quarantine people and it leads to a massive outbreak.

Basically in conclusion, people playing mas and feting actually reduces the chances of this disease being spread as it's not exposing people in a prolonged close quarters way.

I just went CIC last night, carefully examined how people interact, wash hands, don't eat with your fingers and talk into someone's ear not face to face (noticed the majority do that) and you'll be fine.

This versus being at home with someone who is coughing but touching everything and in a small indoor space, transmission becomes far more likely

[paid_influencer]

Devourment, why do we have more cases of influenza and colds around carnival time? not this year specifically, but historically.

[Gladiator]

Devourment, you do know that coronavirus hasn't reach as yet but we have people sleeping in the hospital corridors all now due to no beds. BTW how many test kits for this new virus do we have in T&T?

[meccalli]

This disease spreads from coughing via droplets, it's not truly airborne (the range is small). To get this virus you need to be coughed on, on your mouth. Another way is by putting your hands in your mouth after touching a surface or after residue lands on it.

Please tell me you're kidding, including all who read this in agreement.....

[Devourment]

Devourment, why do we have more cases of influenza and colds around carnival time? not this year specifically, but historically.

Yes but the peak is actually right after December

[Devourment]

This disease spreads from coughing via droplets, it's not truly airborne (the range is small). To get this virus you need to be coughed on, on your mouth. Another way is by putting your hands in your mouth after touching a surface or after residue lands on it.

Please tell me you're kidding, including all who read this in agreement.....

https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-nc ... ssion.html


2019 Novel Coronavirus

Much is unknown about how 2019-nCoV, a new coronavirus, spreads. Current knowledge is largely based on what is known about similar coronaviruses. Coronaviruses are a large family of viruses that are common in many different species of animals, including camels, cattle, cats, and bats. Rarely, animal coronaviruses can infect people and then spread between people such as with MERS, SARS, and now with 2019-nCoV.

Most often, spread from person-to-person happens among close contacts (about 6 feet). Person-to-person spread is thought to occur mainly via respiratory droplets produced when an infected person coughs or sneezes, similar to how influenza and other respiratory pathogens spread. These droplets can land in the mouths or noses of people who are nearby or possibly be inhaled into the lungs. It’s currently unclear if a person can get 2019-nCoV by touching a surface or object that has the virus on it and then touching their own mouth, nose, or possibly their eyes.

Typically, with most respiratory viruses, people are thought to be most contagious when they are most symptomatic (the sickest). With 2019-nCoV, however, there have been reportsexternal icon of spread from an infected patient with no symptoms to a close contact.

It’s important to note that how easily a virus spreads person-to-person can vary. Some viruses are highly contagious (like measles), while other viruses are less so. There is much more to learn about the transmissibility, severity, and other features associated with 2019-nCoV and investigations are ongoing. This information will further inform the risk assessment. Read the latest 2019 Novel Coronavirus, Wuhan, China situation summary.

Page last reviewed: January 31, 2020

[maj. tom]

I think that is what he means.
Flu-like viruses can survive up to 24 hours on hard surfaces, so it's not wrong to make the same assumption for washing your hands argument.

[Devourment]

Devourment, you do know that coronavirus hasn't reach as yet but we have people sleeping in the hospital corridors all now due to no beds. BTW how many test kits for this new virus do we have in T&T?

Yes that's why I said we aren't prepared for an outbreak. What we are following is WHO and CDCs guidelines in identifying the sick. That's all we and literally all countries can do, along with the quarantine procedures.

[maj. tom]

oh wait, it's you replying to the guy above.

Wait, you eh ask him how it's transmitted then?

[meccalli]

[rspann]

....but people in a band are usually closer than six ft , and they wine up and touch each other while singing and talking loudly at close range to overcome the music. They usually hug up too. That not dangerous? As for the touching of surfaces , isn't the report saying they don't know if it spreads that way?