The Flu (Health)

[Grant]

Note that those "Frenchmen" and "Americans" and Britons" who have gone down with Coronavirus are actually of Chinese descent.
My bet is that this bug won't spread to the West and once again we are panicking about nowt

[Mick Harper]

Something is wrong. Channel 4 News shows footage 'smuggled out' of a Wuhan hospital showing stockpiled body bags. Jon Snow tells us 425 people have died in China. That's over many, many weeks. Now even if the deaths are concentrated in Wuhan, even if Wuhan deaths are concentrated in this particular hospital, that's entirely within the normal range of deaths-in-hospitals. So why the need to stockpile body bags?

[Grant]

Maybe Orientals are prone to hypochondria? That's why they put on face masks at every opportunity.
Note that we still have no black or white victims yet.
This thought comforted me when I had my breakfast in a Manchester hotel this morning next to two Chinese families!

[Mick Harper]

I doubt that detail about the Manchester hotel, but I understand the requirements of story-telling. What I would like to know is how you know about that detail re no blacks and whites. I was discussing this with Hatty yesterday and we both agreed that no such conclusion could be drawn from the reporting we had heard. It is important if true.

Good point about the face masks but I think it is more likely they have got used to it because of air pollution.

[Chad]

Why is the current incarnation of the virus going by the generic name coronavirus?

Why has it not been given a sexy name, like its predecessors SARS and MERS?

[Mick Harper]

Because (though they keep not mentioning this) it had already been named. It is a variant of one that's been around for yonks.

PS If you think 'Coronavirus' is less sexy than SARS and MERS I fear for your love-life.

[Chad]

[Mick Harper]

Sorry, I didn't know any of this and assumed everyone else knew less. Heaven protect me from having to do any research. Let's cut free from the biology which presumably everyone (else) knows about and try to work out what's happening, assuming something (else) is happening.

One possibility that occurred to me, but to which I give a low order of likelihood, is that it is all to do with internal Chinese politics. Nothing quietens people (eg Hong Kongers) down faster than an epidemic and nothing reminds people of the benefits of having a truly big brother than having to deal with an epidemic.

[Chad]

[Grant]

Don't doubt me. I was in the Holiday Inn and at breakfast was put next to two Chinese families. Actually not sure they were Chinese but they were certainly oriental. Apparently there's a Chinatown nearby. Maybe they were visiting friends?

[Grant]

How do we know they are all oriental? Easy, they are referred to as Canadians or French etc. If they were European or black we would hear it soon enough.
This is a disease which is affecting - slightly - people of the far East. Why, who knows, but each race has a different disposition to disease. Of course we are not supposed to notice

[Mick Harper]

This seems to be a bit thin. I'm sure somebody would have plucked up enough courage to mention it by now. I also think people are allowed to mention differential rates of various afflictions among the races, they often do so anyway. If the difference was on the extraordinary scale you propose it would be worthy of an article in the Lancet. Your own prejudices seem to be running away with you on this occasion.

[Grant]

Let's see. When I see a European on TV recovering from coronavirus I'll change my mind.

[Mick Harper]

A curious way of gathering evidence when jumping to conclusions. How many of the 'Canadian', 'French', 'American' and 'British' examples you were regaling us with were oriental? In the Holiday Inn sense of that term.

[Chad]