Wuhan virus.

[Workingman]

Ooh look, a lawyer, and a gender and Human Rights consultant to boot. Does she do transplants or brain surgery as well?

In the real world, not some conspiracy theory, this is what happened to the Americans. There were 40 known cases boarding the flights home and another 14 found in transit and all in two tubes with hundreds of other passengers and crew. Before they left there were 15 known cases in the US, now there are 69 or 4.6 times the previous number. The US has actively imported live cases onto home soil when they had halted all flights from China in order to stop just that. Now that is what I call insane.

[Suff]

It depends on how you view your citizens rights and your responsibility to them.

The US is different in the way they handle this.

It also depends on whether you want to feel alone and uncared for by your government.

[Kaz]

Definitely agreeing with you on this Suff, it should be entirely possible to safely repatriate our people in adapted planes, and quarantine then on home soil. Everyone else seems to be doing it

[Suff]

A Japanese infectious diseaes professor was barred from the ship for asking too many questions. He has gone into self isolation.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/0 ... risis/amp/

[Kaz]

A most interesting read

[Workingman]

From the article:

Hundreds of passengers who have tested negative for Covid-19 will be allowed to depart freely from the ship over the next three days. But concerns remain that some could be asymptomatic carriers – of the 79 newly confirmed cases on Wednesday, authorities said 68 were not showing any symptoms.

Those are FACTS: think about them. And...Some of those being allowed to depart freely might be infected but not showing signs!

The question of whether more infections had occurred during the quarantine, rather than before it began on February 5, was “possible but not proven,” Prof Iwata said.

A scary opinion and counter to what the man said earlier - in other words, he does not know.

What actually happens on the ship is to control a situation in a small area of a dock. To bring people off and then ship them to all points of the globe is a potential risk to those places and ultimately further afield. Don't forget that of all those 'clean' evacuees on the American evac flights 14 were discovered to be infective in flight. Nobody is guaranteed to be immune.

The only saving grace is that Covid-19 looks likely to be at about the level of seasonal flu - for now.

I do understand the sympathy and empathy for those on the ship, but we cannot let our emotions dictate what necessary actions we take to protect the rest of us. Even if they are brought home they will still be isolated from their friends and families for another 14 days, minimum, but from places where there is no guarantee that it will not escape.

However, I do see a very 'social media' element to all of this: 'Oh look at the poor dears, thousands of miles from home, please guv, bring them home where they will all be safe, think of their families'.

Quite right. They are living in shipping containers and fed on gruel. Grip: get a hold of.

[AliasAggers]

This problem of the Wuhan virus is one for which there is no answer that will ever be acceptable to everyone.

It is of parament importance that effective steps are taken that will reduce the possibility of it taking the lives
of a vast number of people worldwide, but it will probably be impossible to reach agreement on what is the most
effective method of achieving this. We can only hope that not many lives will be lost in the process.

[Workingman]

It is of parament importance that effective steps are taken that will reduce the possibility of it taking the lives
of a vast number of people worldwide

I agree, so why are we taking people who 'might' be infectious from a controlled environment to places where no one is or could have ever possibly been infected and then possibly infecting them?. It is, after all, what we are doing.

Is it because we know for certain that we can contain it? No. Is it for practical reasons? No. Is it emotional in essence because we want to be seen to be caring? Put your mortgage and life savings on it.

[Suff]

Because we are taking them from a ship which is not designed to support isolation, crewed by staff who don't know how to protect themselves, or the passengers, in a managed and controlled situation and putting them in a controlled environment staffed by medical professionals who do know how to protect themselves and their patients.

[correction, the deaths happened off the ship. Stupid radio news...]

Expect the questions to get stronger as time goes on.

[Workingman]

Because we are taking them from a ship which is not designed to support isolation.

Where a nursing accommodation block on the Wirral is? And it is also obvious that the Japanese medical professionals are numpties and do not have a clue how to protect themselves.

The response to the situation is emotionally driven and would be a whole lot different if the ship was berthed at Tilbury or Southampton.