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PANDEMIC ALERT LEVEL
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Tracking the next pandemic: Avian Flu Talk

320 MERS-cases in KSA ?
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Dutch Josh View Drop Down
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    Posted: June 21 2013 at 6:03am
If the case-fatality-rate of MERS is the same as for SARS it would be around 10%. There have been at least 32 confirmed fatalities due to MERS in the KSA. That would indicate that at least 320 cases would make the 100%. The CFR in KSA is over 50% only indicates that more then 80 % of the infected people did escape proper testing. 

With the Haj in July MERS will spread. To deal with that spread access to healthcare should improve. Worldwide healthcare has become less accessable. If people with underlying illness, such as diabetes, would be advised to go to do Haj in 2014 maybe there will be less "superspreaders". 

It is a big problem that MERS most times does not make people very ill. It is easy to mistake MERS for a flu. 

If  all people on this planet would have to deal with a MERS-pandemic with a CFR of 10% that would cost 700.000.000 lives. Effects of such massive pandemic would simply be the end of the world as we know it.  
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Points: 2495 		Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote quietprepr Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: June 21 2013 at 12:34pm
I assume KSA refers to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia?
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KSA is Kingdom of Saudi Arabia but a lot faster Smile (and maybe more modern Confused)
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I'm not sure that the death of 700 million people worldwide would be the end of the world as we know it. When the black death arrived in Europe in the 14th century it killed an estimated 50% of the population, that's one out of every two people, and yet they managed fine. It changed things but life when on. 

If it happened today we would say goodbye to funeral homes and individual graves. We would lose our squeamishness surrounding death and corpses. We would have mass unmarked graves and bodies would be stacked like firewood waiting to be collected. 

In the 14th century there was a severe shortage of labour and the black death contributed to the end of the feudal system. Suddenly labourers were in demand and could charge more for their services. This was counteracted by new laws preventing labourers moving to new parishes, but they still did. Many fields were left untended and crops rotted in the fields. Many fields returned to scrub land and eventually forest. Whole families died out leaving land unowned. 

I guess, that just as in the middle ages, we would deal with disease at home. We would have to readjust our expectations about health care.
Those who got it wrong, for whatever reason, may feel defensive and retrench into a position that doesn’t accord with the facts.
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Points: 95777 		Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Dutch Josh Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: June 22 2013 at 12:56am
Things changed a lot since the 14th century ! Our economy depends on specialized labour. A bad flu-season is allready a problem. A MERS-pandemic with a CFR of 10%, what i do not expect, would mean the collapse of the economy. Our economy depends on power plants, watercontrol etc. that need constant attention. We can not afford to loose specialized workers on a massive scale !
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Points: 29680 		Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote KiwiMum Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: June 23 2013 at 12:52pm
I think the fear of the disease would be enough to make people stay at home and not turn up to work and that could be enough for a breakdown in the utilities and services we rely on.

I read an end of the world type book in which key workers (doctors, police, firemen, power plant workers etc) were not turning up to work and the military rushed in and forced these people back to work. A scary proposition. Certainly highly urbanised areas couldn't survive without utilities.
Those who got it wrong, for whatever reason, may feel defensive and retrench into a position that doesn’t accord with the facts.
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Points: 47251 		Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote jacksdad Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: June 23 2013 at 1:58pm
Yep - you get a third of the population so sick that they can't come to work for weeks and weeks, and combine that with absenteeism from social distancing and you have a major problem. Just about every supply line that keeps us alive would be affected. It's not the disease - it's how we'd behave during a pandemic and how we've structured our world that would hurt us the most.
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote LOPPER Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: June 23 2013 at 2:28pm

It's just not the virus itself in which people might have to contend with during a pandemic, as if that were not enough. It's the social aspect which becomes a very key variable as that has the potential to effect your life in an exponential number of ways. And the more panicked a population becomes, there comes, a tipping point where the virus itself may become more secondary to the more immediate task of survival and the related events at hand as the situation dictates. You'll know when that tipping point happens.
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote LOPPER Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: June 23 2013 at 2:31pm
Originally posted by jacksdad jacksdad wrote:

Yep - you get a third of the population so sick that they can't come to work for weeks and weeks, and combine that with absenteeism from social distancing and you have a major problem. Just about every supply line that keeps us alive would be affected. It's not the disease - it's how we'd behave during a pandemic and how we've structured our world that would hurt us the most.
 
I agree with that 100%.
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See the news section.  Saudi Arabia has started to announce asymptomatic cases - at least  6 of the  7 new cases (announced 23rd June) were without symptoms. 
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The best way to avoid large scale panic is trustworthy information by autorities. I think that there lies one problem. The good thing about the asymptomatic cases being found is that the case-fatality rate goes down dramaticly. The bad side is that it is getting clear that the MERS-virus does spread unnoticed. With now 33 fatalities in the KSA and maybe a CFR of 5% there might be 660 persons infected of wich 90 % are not detected ! 

Of course MERS is not the only virus/illness going around. In a worldwide large MERS-outbreak you can expect a lot of co-infections that might become a bigger problem on a foundation of a MERS-pandemic ! 

@KiwiMum, by the time a pandemic shows up, due to incubationtime, social distancing might be to late; the virus has already spread to essential workforce. 

When you look at how Greece (as an example) is influencced by the economic crisis there is already a very big problem. Spending on healthcare is more then halved, homelessness increased, drug-adiction increased-and with that prostitution and HIV/AIDS. That itself has shown to be a bases for increase in multi-resistent tuberculosis. The cummulitive effect of a pandemic is the big problem !
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote newbie Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: June 27 2013 at 12:59pm
Originally posted by KiwiMum KiwiMum wrote:

I think the fear of the disease would be enough to make people stay at home and not turn up to work and that could be enough for a breakdown in the utilities and services we rely on.

I read an end of the world type book in which key workers (doctors, police, firemen, power plant workers etc) were not turning up to work and the military rushed in and forced these people back to work. A scary proposition. Certainly highly urbanised areas couldn't survive without utilities.
 
EXACTLY! And as writer above this original comment posted - things have changed a lot since 14th century.  They didn't have fridges, microwaves, or indoor plumbing - they were used to burning dung for heating & cooking fuel and living in small homes - all things that most ppl now a days have nightmares over!  In those days ppl grew their own greens, raised their own livestock/knew how to hunt (butcher) & gather, all these skills are long gone for the VAST majority of ppl now.  When the critical infa-structures of our societies fail (I do think 'when' vs 'if' in bad enough pandemic situation) most ppl will be hooped - no real concept of survival.  Sorry but I just don't see this (any major pandemic) as being anything other TEOTWAWKI ...wish I felt differently - but need to be realistic
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Guests Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: June 27 2013 at 8:14pm
newbe I was saying just what you said to my sister today.   She goes to the store every day to purchase food. She has maybe 4 days of food in her house same as the rest of her family. She thinks I am crazy?
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