Coronavirus death toll rises to 41 with more than 1000 cases confirmed.

People wear facemasks as they enter Beijing. Reuters. 

The death toll from the Coronavirus outbreak in China has risen to 41 with more than 1000 cases confirmed. Reuters. All of the deaths have occurred in China so far but cases have been found in Thailand, Singapore, Vietnam, Japan, Taiwan, France, South Korea and the United States. More than 10 cities in China have been put into lockdown, including the source of the outbreak, Wuhan. In Wuhan, Chinese authorities are building a 1000 bed hospital from scratch as the already existing hospitals are becoming overwhelmed. The new Coronavirus is causing concern due to it's ease of spread and because it can cause pneumonia. Most of the dead have been people with pre-existing conditions and poor health. 

My Comment:

I have to admit that this story is starting to concern me a little. The containment lockdowns are spreading rapidly and now effects more than 40 million people. China isn't being totally honest at what is going on and it's hard to get good news from the country. Though the effort to bring the virus under control are continuing, it might already be too late. 

The fact that China is building a brand new hospital in Wuhan makes me think that things are not going well there. It seems pretty obvious that the current hospitals are being overwhelmed, and video I have seen on social media seems to back this up. It strikes me as a desperate move to both relieve the pressure on their other hospitals and to concentrate all the Coronavirus patients in one place. 

However, this is not just a China problem anymore. With the incubation period for this strain of Coronavirus being so long and no travel bans or screening put into place until very recently, it's very possible that there are people who have the virus that are in other countries that don't even know it yet. And some reports I have seen said it was possible to spread this virus without openly showing symptoms. 

That being said, I don't think it's time to panic just yet. This virus is extremely dangerous but it's not world ending plague dangerous. It's not even on the level of Spanish Flu, which killed millions of people in the aftermath of World War I. It mostly seems to be killing older people with compromised immune systems, much like the flu does. 

Unfortunately it seems to be quite a bit more deadly than the normal flu and fairly easy to spread. If the admittedly unreliable numbers from China are right than this virus has a death rate of around 4% which doesn't sound to bad until you remember that the flu doesn't have anywhere close to that high of a mortality rate. 

If that death rate holds and the infection isn't brought under control than we might be in some trouble. And the rate of death could go up, not so much because the virus changes in anyway but because the medical system could get overrun and wouldn't be able to treat anyone. Of course there is evidence is that Wuhan is already their so we may have already hit the ceiling in terms of mortality rate. Let's hope so at least. Either way we should find out for sure in the coming days and weeks. 

I do think it is time to start thinking about taking steps to protect yourself from Coronavirus no matter where you live. Simple things like washing your hands, not touching your face, covering your mouth when you cough or sneeze and avoiding crowded areas if you can can go a long way in keeping you and your family safe. It might also be a good idea to stock up on necessary supplies like food and medicine (an ammo if you live in a free country), not so much because I expect those things to run out but because the risk of doing so now and getting infected is much less than it will be in a few weeks if this outbreak isn't brought under control. 

Though the deaths this outbreak could cause will be tragic, the real danger is panic, civil disorder and disruption for the economy. If the virus isn't brought under control people will refuse to go to work and the engine that powers the global economy might be temporally halted. And there is a real chance that people will be so upset with the various governments of the world that some of them may face resistance. 

That being said, I don't want to be a fearmonger. There are enough of those out there already and I do want to say that even if the worst case scenario happens and this virus goes out of control, it won't be a civilization ending thing. Hell, the Spanish Flu was way worse than this has potential to be and society chugged along just fine after it burned itself out. This virus isn't anywhere near as bad, it's just the fact that we haven't dealt with a widespread outbreak in the United States in a very long time. The vast majority of people that get sick won't die and things will eventually get back to normal. 

Speaking of fearmongers, there are a lot of them active right now. It pays to keep in mind that though the government of China isn't to be trusted, neither are random people on the internet. You shouldn't worry too much about this being an escaped bioweapon or other such nonsense and you should obviously avoid anyone claiming that some stupid herb will cure Coronavirus. Just keep your skeptic glasses on and remind yourself that people on the internet are mostly full of it.