Day 9: The Real Numbers

Via ProMED-mail: In the Swiss Medical Weekly, researchers estimate the real case and fatality numbers based on various possible rates of misreporting, underreporting, and overreporting (of both cases and deaths). While a good overview of the possible sources of error, the math itself seems less useful.

The five British cases in the French ski chalet were infected by a sixth Brit who brought the disease back from Singapore, another case of country-to-country-to-country transmission of Wuhan coronavirus.

The Washington Post reports that "lawyer and citizen journalist" Chen Qiushi who had been reporting on the epidemic from Wuhan has been missing since Thursday. The Chinese government claims to have him in quarantine, where PlagueBlog hopes he will receive better care than Li Wenliang.

Citizens of Hong Kong are encouraged to keep their drain traps wet and put down the toilet seat before flushing, as well as to practice more obvious hygienic precautions. PlagueBlog hopes they will take the advice to avoid wet markets to heart.

The South China Morning Post also reports that a 7-year-old Hong Kong boy has been diagnosed with an "imported" case of H9 (subtype unspecified) bird flu (emphasis added):

According to the centre's preliminary investigations, the patient had visited his grandparents' home in Shenzhen at the incubation stage of his viral infection. Although the family kept poultry in their house, the boy had not come into direct contact with the birds. His family members have not reported any symptoms.

P.S. Cases exceeded 40,000 by the end of the day, and cases aboard the quarantined cruise ship reached 70 (though the food tweeter tweets on). Cases in Singapore reached 40 and the French chalet ex-Singapore cluster also continues to grow.