The amusement is entirely about your ridiculous overreaction.  With 30k plus cases there should be thousands of deaths by now, taking your confident assertions. 

The sane, reliable sources say it's around 2%, somewhat lower than the infamous Spanish Flu.  Plus, that figure is virtually all in China: countries with better healthcare facilities and skills ought to see lower values.  Indeed initial estimates put it in line with a normal flu outbreak, below 0.2% (so, just a factor of a hundred less than your scaremongering).

Your contributions are the sort of nonsense that gives the Internet and social media a bad name.

No they don't.Three most recent cases in Singapore.

1) 53 YO male with no recent travel history to China. Had only visited Malyasia prior to developing symptons.

2) 42 YO female with no travel history at all . Had visited an airport and zoo, worked at a college.

3) 39 YO female with no recent travel history to China. Had visited Malyasia prior to developing sysmptons.

They would not have issued the Orange alert if it was not going out of control. And franklyt the fact that the UK case came from singapore is also deeply worrying.

Don't you have some toys to play with?

If you can't stay on topic with a useful contribution why not just keep quiet? This one was just sad.

1) We have no idea about the reliability of the figures in China

2) The virus takes up to a month to kill you and at least two weeks. The lag effect is extreme. Case fatality rates are at 2%, that does not mean mortality is 2%. SARS had CFRs at 2% which then rose to 10% after the epidemic once the lag became accounted for. And SARS resolved faster (confimed->death) than nCov which means the lag effect might be even more extreme.

3) The pre-lit does not suggest a mortality of 2%. It enphasises that the mortality rate is very difficult to determine. 0.2% is absolute BS, I've not seen that figure anywhere.

To state the bleeding obvious you don't quarantine entire cities with populations in the multiple millions if this is 'just the flu'.

This spreads faster and is more dangerous.

The cruise ship may allow us to determine accurate mortality rates (in about a month from now) once all cases have been resolved.

Also these cases in Singapore that are now coming to light developed symptons around the 24th January which means they were potentially infectious around the 20th January.

It is now the 7th February.

And sure let's trust whatever comes out of China.

It's not like they arrested doctors warning about the virus and then tried to cover up the death of a doctor who succumbed to the same disease he was warning about?

There are experts saying that the true number of cases may well be 10x as many because a lot of people are likely to have got only mild symptoms and not even be aware that it's the new Coronavirus strain.  The reported cases are necessarily the worst ones.  The Chinese authorities are saying that the nationwide rate is 2% and that is skewed hugely by the cases in Wuhan and the surrounding area.

If the rate is so difficult to determine how can you give your own high estimates?  I've asked you this before with no response.  You cannot take uncertainty and twist it to suit your preferred narrative.  I stand by my assertion that this could be no worse than normal Flu.  If there really are 10x as many cases as reported all with mild symptoms then this may well be as accurate as your predictions of doom.

CFRs ARE NOT MORTALITY RATES. How many times do I have to point this out.

Yes there may be mild cases that bring the mortality rate down as I have already alluded to, but there is no confort, at all, to be taken in a disease that is much more infectious than originally assumed.

10% is a rough estimate based on the pre lit which have figures that range from about 5% to as high as 50%. Also 10% is what SARS turned out to be which also had a CFR during the epidemic of 2%. So this is a very reasonable estimate.

We are talking about a best case scenario here of an infection that is 20x more dangerous than flu and several times more infectious.

Quite clearly you don't have a clue about what an 'Orange alert' means. 

As you say, two of those three cases had been to Malaysia, so every likelihood that they contracted the disease there. That's not good news for Malaysia but it does call into question your assumption.

I'm the clueless one? You claimed that all of the cases from Singapore had links to China.

It just tells the virus to go faster, like an orange light.

I.e Not from China as you claimed.

So in the least possible number of steps it means someone who was from China transmitted to a Singaporian while in Malaysia. And now we have a case in the UK that came from Singapore.

And this transmission occured 2 weeks ago

I think this is the point, the timeline of the infection. There is a period when the infection is asymptomatic, which appears to be as long as 10 days in many people - are people contagious during that period? Unclear on that topic. That is followed by a period of relatively mild symptoms, when the carrier is most definitely contagious - again that period can also last for days, when the carrier is at liberty to wander around doing normal things and infecting other people. Some people appear to recover following mild symptoms, but others then become seriously ill, with fever and pneumonia like symptoms - these people then have to be hospitalised.

So the issue is the period between becoming contagious and having sufficient symptoms to be quarantined - during that period it is clear that the infection can be passed on at quite a quick rate. I would anticipate on the evidence available thus far, that epidemics in Singapore, Thailand, Malaysia, South Korea, Hong Kong, Japan and Taiwan are now almost inevitable.

Anyone else get the feeling that *some people* are going to be so disappointed if this doesn't develop into a global pandemic with deaths in the millions?

I would tend to agree.

There is just ONE case in Singapore that cannot yet be linked to China. The two with links to Malaysia may well have a China connection and the teacher is just unexplained so far.  I'm sorry it that doesn't fit with your flights of fancy.

You clearly do not understand what the Orange alert status means and trying to change the subject doesn't alter that fact.

i'm not going to continue this. By all means continue to share your ridiculous musings but don't pretend you know what you're talking about.

Er No. All three cases cannot be linked to China. There is no proven link between the 2 who travelled to Malaysia and China.

You claimed that there were proven links between all singaporian cases and China. This is simply not true.

I think that's a reasonable point, but we just don't know yet about the current virus.

I assume you have challenged the three posts from the other users who were mocking Q as off topic as well. Of course you havent.

That is a gratuitously unpleasant remark.

The issue is that the authorities have not taken all appropriate measures - tourism to SE Asia should have been curtailed a couple of weeks ago for a start and cruises in the region should have been suspended immediately (as I have stated previously).

I am not taking any flights in the next couple of months, even though I was supposed to visit Denmark in March - I have scotched that plan.

I am taking it seriously. The facts are:

1) WHO say the number of new cases has fallen for 2 consecutive days. However, it is too early to say whether the decline will be maintained.

2) It is too early to be confident about mortality rates but the WHO's estimation remains around 2%. As others have noted SARS killed around 10% even though initial estimates had it around 2%. On the flip side it appears the coronavirus is transmitted more easily and is therefore probably less deadly  

What to do about it? Commonsense measures such as frequent washing of hands, not rubbing your eyes etc. after touching doors / surfaces,  and staying warm are that extent of it at the moment. Personally I wouldn't avoid flying.

At a certain age the penny drops that one will pop their clogs sooner or later. There are many ways to go. I think it very unlikely corona will be my terminator or yours. 

I’m not even sure we’ll have a better idea of mortality rates from the cruise ship.  I’m thinking that passengers are likely to be within a certain age group and from similar backgrounds, rather than a cross section of society in general.

As of yesterday evening, there was no such testing in the UK for people entering the country, so there’s no telling how many cases we might have here.  Minor cases will go undetected, unlike those in Singapore.  Having just returned, there’s no telling whether I’ve got it.  

I agree Q, it’s no laughing matter but as yet I don’t see reason to panic either.  I think it’s often the case that those who are furthest removed from what’s actually happening, are the ones who panic most.  

Also, we have the great British press doing their best on the subject as usual!  

Then I'm not sure why I'm being mocked for some of my posts. My comment on the mortality rate wasn't an original thought, it came from the pre published literature and comments by proffesionals in the field. It doesn't mean they are necessarily right, and there are definitely conflicting views and I'm trying to make both optimistic and pesmisstic posts.

My reference to quarantine was on the dozen or so cities in China that are under quarantine. To me that is an indication about just how serious it is.

With regards to singapore I think there is significant evidence that Singapore is at serious risk of an epidemic if it isn't already in one. And like you say the concern is we are weeks behind when it comes to preventative measures.