Panic!

by nedhead, Sunday, January 26, 2020, 10:23 (1523 days ago)

People are panicking right now from the Wuhan virus. It's in the middle of spring festival, when people usually go home, but nobody is traveling. Peking University starts back up in mid-Feb, but they've already announced a late start to the semester. Authorities cut off Wuhan, but probably a few days too late (understandably, as that's a drastic move). Our relatives in Chongqing just bought 2 months worth of food so that they don't have to leave their apartment. People are scared.

I'm in Pasadena, where the Chinese community has been in a panic. Today's news that a girl from Wuhan was found in the OC to have the virus set of our own mini-panic, where we ran to the store to buy hand-washing alcohol and whatever masks were still left. The cheap surgical masks are sold out everywhere, with amazon shipments listed as late February/early March. There was a mini-rush to Home Depot following a rumor that they weren't yet sold out, but we figured we couldn't get there in time.

The news is that the incubation period is 14 days and that people are contagious before they get sick. Fortunately, it's not as contagious as SARS or the measles (get vaccinated!), but still, that makes it impossible to stop, so authorities need to suppress the spread as they race for a vaccine. The US and France are rescuing people from Wuhan right now, which seems like a pretty bad idea. I wonder whether all traffic from China should be cut off.

Mass panic may not be that far off. I'm confident in China's ability to control it's people, but I wonder how the US will do when the virus spreads here. Society is not as stable as we'd like to assume.


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