new coronavirus outbreak China, Korea, USA - mod warnings in OP (updated 24/02/20)

ceadaoin. wrote: »

Just read that apparently all 10 german patients are in good condition with mild symptoms only and haven't received or needed any anti viral meds or oxygen support etc. According to the doctors their symptoms are comparable to a cold. Its been almost 2 weeks since the first cases there so we should expect them to be fully recovered soon, or go downhill perhaps.

creditcarder wrote: »

Strange. I wonder are they prioritising female patients? (Gender gap in China)

From what I've read on the early research into the outbreak it seems that the virus tends to cause worse symptoms in people with a higher number of a particular receptor(s) in the lungs, whose name escapes at the moment I'm afraid. In general men have more of these receptors and east Asian folks as a population have more such receptors. This might explain the so far lower incidence of complications and deaths from it in non east Asian populations.

Of course set against that is a thankfully tiny number of non Asians that have been exposed to or contracted the disease, so the numbers are too small to posit any conclusions. Plus different populations can react to infections in different ways. Very isolated populations for example can be felled by what those who have lived in urban environments for centuries would either not catch or see as a bit of a sniffle, or populations that have been exposed to similar pathogens for longer. EG African populations would have more resistance to something like malaria compared to northern Europeans, whereas there would be more people in a population of northern Europeans that would have some resistance to plague.