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I think Jon MW mentioned the film Contagion from 2011 - amazing how similar it is to the current situ..fun watch
That's kind of why my wife's epidemiology lecturer recommended it for them - it's not that it's just similar to the current situation - what's happening now is basically what happens for every epidemic; it just doesn't normally happen on this wide a scale.
All of the things like travel restrictions and quarantines and closing down sporting events and schools happened with the SARs virus (for example) - but only in parts of Asia.
Which leads on to:
The Chinese numbers make no sense at all to me. If they have almost completely got control of the situation it would be great to share the solution!
They have the ability to lock down cities or even bigger areas which we do not.
I was going to say - it's not really a surprise it it? Apart from trying to suppress it right at the start the Chinese have pretty much told us everything they've been doing.
I am sure it has some significant effect, but I struggle to believe some of the news. This morning the only cases they reported outside Wuhan were imported from Iran. A lot of the country has the right temperature to encourage spread and in a lot of areas people live in such close proximity to each other. People are still treating thousands in hospital, there has been talk of equipment shortages, yet there are no locally transmitted cases outside Wuhan.
This is what happened to the SARs virus. It got spread by lots of people - control measures were put in place - it got spread by less people.
Eventually you reach a point where a lot of the population left just aren't susceptible to the virus and anybody who does get the virus is easily isolated and treated before they have a chance to infect other people.
This virus is a lot more like seasonal flu then it is like SARs - that is why it's become such a big deal; but the epidemiology of it is likely to be pretty similar.
Long term: the best case scenario is that this control suppresses it as much as possible until a vaccine is found then it's going to be largely wiped out; worst case scenario is probably that the control measures will get the epidemic under control but no vaccine will be found so there will be periodic outbreaks in the future.
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