Coronavirus declared global health emergency: Here’s what Californians need to know
The World Health Organization announced Thursday that the new coronavirus poses a global health risk, declaring a public health emergency as the illness has spread to more than 8,000 people and precipitated the deaths of 171.
The same day, the United States reported its first case of human-to-human transmission of coronavirus. In Chicago, a woman had returned last week from Wuhan, China, with the respiratory illness, and now her spouse has come down with it.
In California, residents are expressing dismay and incredulity on social media that the U.S. government evacuated a planeload of its Wuhan-based employees and their dependents Wednesday to a military base in the Golden State and plans to release them from isolation after 72 hours. Public health officials have said that the incubation period for the disease is two to 14 days.
In a prepared statement, the emergency committee assembled by WHO’s director-general, Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, commended China for being so transparent and for rapidly developing a diagnostic tool to evaluate sick patients. While acknowledging that, the committee said that a coordinated global effort is needed to enhance preparedness. While all countries should be prepared for containment, the committee did not recommend restrictions on travel or trade.
“It is still possible to interrupt virus spread, provided that countries put in place strong measures to detect disease early, isolate and treat cases, trace contacts, and promote social distancing measures commensurate with the risk,” the committee stated. “It is important to note that as the situation continues to evolve, so will the strategic goals and measures to prevent and reduce spread of the infection.”
As Californians grapple with the latest news about this virus, here is information to keep in mind from officials with the U.S. Centers for Disease Control, the U.S. Agency for International Development, the University of California and the California Department of Public Health:
What is new coronavirus?
This illness respiratory illness also goes by the name novel coronavirus and the code 2019-nCoV. It is a viral respiratory illness that spilled over into people from bats, said Christine Kreuder Johnson, a professor of epidemiology and ecosystem health at the University of California, Davis.
UCD has been leading a global investigation for the last 10 years into coronaviruses and other pathogens that can be transmitted to humans. Through partnerships with scientists at the Wuhan Institute of Virology and other research institutes around the world, Johnson and her colleagues have identified more than 1,100 viruses, many of them zoonotic viruses that are of public health concern.
“The name coronavirus just has to do with how they look,” Johnson said. “It looks like they have a crown when there’s pictures of them in microscopic views. They’re a hugely diverse, big family of viruses, and most mammals have coronaviruses, and they stay in mammals. Only a handful – six so far, and this would be the seventh – infect humans.”
The other six include a couple of other viruses that grabbed headlines over the last decade — SARS, or severe acute respiratory syndrome, and Middle East Respiratory Syndrome, or MERS. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and other health organizations worldwide are basing their estimate of this new virus’ incubation period on that of the MERS incubation period. MERS first appeared in Saudi Arabia in 2012 and has since spread around the world. Its symptoms typically start to appear about 5 or 6 days after a person is exposed, but that can range from 2 to 14 days.
If you look back at the evolutionary history of SARS, MERS and the new coronavirus, you’ll find that they all originated with a species of bat common in Asia. Pathogens like these, which can be transmitted to humans from animals, are known as zoonotic diseases. UCD and its partners did surveillance and sampling on more than 145,000 animals and humans to learn how these diseases get transmitted and how to minimize that risk.
Nearly 75 percent of all new, emerging, or re-emerging diseases affecting humans in this era originate from animals.
Is this new virus as life-threatening as SARS or MERS?
Data is still coming in, but so far, about two out of every 100 people infected with the illness have died from it. With MERS, between 30 and 40 of every 100 people who contract it died.
For SARS, which emerged in 2002, roughly 10 out of every 100 people succumbed to the illness.
The tricky part here is that flu is going around at the same time as this new coronavirus, and it has similar symptoms: fever, coughing and respiratory distress. Consequently, medical teams have to rely upon testing to determine whether an individual has new coronavirus. Unfortunately, many diagnostic laboratories are already overwhelmed with flu testing.
To reduce the strain on these resources, public health officials recommend that people get flu vaccines. The shots will prevent or reduce the symptoms of influenza. So far this season, U.S. public health officials have reported at least 8,200 deaths from flu, 15 million flu illnesses and 140,000 hospitalizations.
Do surgical masks prevent transmission of the virus?
The virus is probably spread most often when people sneeze or cough, releasing droplets into the air.
No public health agency has recommended that the general public wear masks to stave off infection. Rather, they recommend the everyday precautions that people take to prevent cold and flu:
- Wash your hands often with soap and water for at least 20 seconds. If you really can’t get to soap and water, then use a hand sanitizer that has at least 60 percent alcohol.
- Can’t wash your hands right away? Avoid touching your mouth, nose and eyes as these are areas where the pathogens can grow.
- Do not stand close to people who are sick. That may mean taking the stairs rather than an elevator.
- If you take an elevator, try not to touch buttons with your fingers. That’s also true for other objects or surfaces that other people may touch. Clean and disinfect those areas if you can. Otherwise, avoid touching them.
- Cover your mouth when you cough or sneeze, either using a tissue or your elbow. Throw used tissues in the trash right away.
- If you are sick, stay at home. If you have traveled to China or have been on an international flight with others from Wuhan in the last two weeks, you may wish to seek medical treatment for any symptoms. Call ahead to let them know why you’re coming. They may wish to admit you into an isolated unit.
As for masks, no studies show surgical masks provide protection. Those masks prevent a spray of droplets from landing in your nose or mouth, but airborne germs can still penetrate around the edges of the mask.
Californians, however, may be familiar with N95 respirator masks that so many state residents used to keep air pollutants out of their respiratory systems during the last few devastating wildfire seasons. Those masks can help to prevent infections if people take time to learn how to use them correctly. If you have facial hair, though, microscopic pathogens will be able to sneak through the tiny passages made by hairs.
Can health agencies really combat this epidemic?
Johnson thinks they can. Here’s why she said she has hope: SARS .started with 300 cases and five deaths in February 2003. It basically traveled from Guangdon province to Hong Kong, and then by July 2003, the worldwide epidemic was shut down.
“There were cases all over the world, and there was human-to-human transmission,” she said, “but through really careful disease prevention, people putting in ultimate safety precautions so diseases are not transmitted from people to people, basically breaking down that chain, basically along the lines of what China is doing now, they were able to contain that epidemic.”
Just as it has done in Wuhan, Johnson explained, China shut down markets where wild animals are sold as pets or for food. It is cutting back on public transportation, keeping kids home from school and shutting down big events that bring people together. China and other nations are taking a lot of emergency measures that keep people from congregating. In the Sacramento region, Elk Grove and Sacramento groups have canceled Lunar New Year’s celebrations.
Public health agencies worldwide also are ensuring that there is good public messaging around all the best practices for preventing disease transmission, Johnson said. The CDC, for instance, has created a really good website that answers questions, provides guidance to travelers and counsels health care professionals. It’s https://bit.ly/coronavirus-facts.
The CDC also has been screening passengers at a number of international U.S. airports for all incoming flights for the last two weeks, Johnson said.
“Right now the outbreak is very, very limited,” she said. “Now, is it going to stay that way? I think it’s unclear because we’re still learning about this virus, and we still have a lot of information about how transmissible it is and in what phases of infection it’s transmissible. It could be that cases are being missed, and if cases are being missed, there’s opportunity for those to cause new outbreaks before they’re noticed.”
How was it transmitted to humans?
Chinese officials have said that, prior to having any symptoms, some people who have the virus have transmitted it to others. Researchers say they are still learning about the new coronavirus.
These viruses are transmitted in all different kinds of ways. Some are vector-borne illnesses such as West Nile virus and malaria that are transmitted by mosquitoes or other blood-feeding parasites, Johnson said, but many are transmitted because humans are coming into closer contact with bats, rodents and other animals carrying the illnesses.
“It’s usually environmental changes that are causing bats to move to new locations or rodents to move into crops,” Johnson said, noting that natural habitats for these animals are disappearing. “It’s the way that we (humans) use the landscape that is also causing a lot of disease to emerge into people, where we have not had a lot of contact with wildlife before, but now we do.”
No one knows yet how this new coronavirus ended up in humans. That could have happened in any number of ways. Sometimes, she said, it’s because an infected bat bites a human or another animal, transmitting the pathogen. Sometimes, as with hantavirus, it could be that saliva or urine from a bat or rodent collected somewhere, and humans got exposed to it. Or, it could have been that, while hunting, processing or cooking the bats, rodents or infected animals, a human became infected with the disease.
“Sometimes, transmission happens for years before people even recognize it,” Johnson said. “The Chinese public health officials have been really quick to diagnose this and find a new virus and publish it, but there’s still a lot of questions as to the source.”
Researchers don’t usually find out the source of a virus like this one for months or years, Johnson said.
“We need to do investigations to understand what was being sold in the market, what viruses the different species had, whether the virus was shared between animals that were wild as well as domesticated, which is quite likely, before it jumped to humans.”
This story was originally published January 30, 2020 at 4:26 PM with the headline "Coronavirus declared global health emergency: Here’s what Californians need to know."
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