global health

Cruise ships, travel restrictions and fear

February 19, 2020 / global health / , , , , , , , ,
Bust and Plaque at the Fighting SARS memorial, Hong Kong

It is time for a hard discussion in the field of global health. In an earlier blog post I talked about how quarantine saved American Samoa during the 1918 influenza pandemic, whereas Western Samoa (now Samoa) lost nearly a quarter of its population. In the latter case, a single ship from New Zealand named the Tahune brought the virus. This video, “1918 Samoa & The Talune – Ship of Death” on YouTube shows the impact that this single ship had on the island’s history. At that time decisions about quarantine and trade were not made by the island’s inhabitants themselves, but rather by colonial administrators. Similarly, in Labrador the Moravian supply ship Harmony brought the 1918 influenza to Indigenous communities, which destroyed some entire population centers. You can see the human cost of this experience in the video, “The Last Days of Okak,” which Newfoundland archives has placed on YouTube.

The point with these two examples is that neither of communities that were affected had any say in the travel restrictions that could have protected them. Those decisions were made elsewhere. In American Samoa a harsh quarantine saved people. Of course there were economic costs to the quarantine, but those were ephemeral, whereas the lost lives in Western Samoa were permanent. But there is another lesson to the experience of these islands. The case fatality rate for the 1918 influenza was perhaps two percent globally. But there were communities (such as in Alaska) where the fatality rate was drastically higher. Some populations are more vulnerable than others, based on isolation, poor health care facilities, economic deprivation, lack of sufficient living space, and other factors. As in 1918, we may see drastic differences in fatality rates with COVID-19. …

Cruise ships, travel restrictions and fearRead More »

Guest blog: Chinese student questions about nCoV

February 10, 2020 / Asia, global health / , , , ,

I want to say my deep thanks for today’s guest blogger, who looks at the questions that Chinese middle school students have about nCoV in China:

Rachael G.

Middle School Teacher

Hangzhou, China

Resident in China since 2017

My CoN experience started prior to leaving Hangzhou in January. Reports were filtering out over WeChat concerning a virus in Wuhan similar to SARS. While I wasn’t overly concerned, I did pay attention to the news as I had been planning to travel to China prior to the SARS epidemic and had also been in the Middle East a year or so after the MERS outbreak. Suffice to say, these diseases were on my radar.

While visiting Portland during Chinese New Year, I was kept abreast of the situation by my school, the US Consulate in Shanghai, and news coming out of China and the Western news media. As the days progressed, my concerns grew and led to questions as to whether I would be able to return let alone whether I should return. After assessing the Chinese response to the outbreak, I made the decision to return based on many factors, including the seriousness with which the Chinese government was working to mitigate the spread and help Wuhan.

I am neither naïve nor uneducated. I know that my access to the internet and information is more limited in China due to a variety of factors I will not be addressing here. What I’d like to focus on at present is my students’ questions in response to the CoN. I teach grades 7 through 9 at a private school here in Hangzhou, Zhejiang Province, China. Our students come from a variety of socioeconomic backgrounds as entrance to the school is based on entrance exams and not the ability to afford tuition.

Prior to my return, my middle school head of department sent out these questions that the students were asking in regards to the Con outbreak.

Student Questions:

  1. Why can’t the medical supplies get to the hospital?
  2. Where does my money go?
  3. Why can’t we go out for walks or to appreciate nature in unoccupied areas?
  4. Did the closure of Wuhan really isolate the disease? Is closure good or bad?
  5. How can Chinese people help during this time?
  6. What will be the impact on those who left the city hours before or after the closure?
  7. Should the city have been closed or not?
  8. Should foreign countries open their doors to China during this time?
  9. How can we continue eat wild animals without getting sick?
  10. Why did it spread quicker than SARS?
  11. Why are there so many false statements being circulated?
  12. How will this affect our country’s economy and international status after it is fully resolved?
  13. How many people are likely to lose their jobs after this?

These questions led me to think about what is being said on the media the students have access to, what their parents might be sharing, the freedom they felt in inquiring, and their understanding of how the CoN affects not only themselves but their country as a whole and its place in the global community. These questions posed by 12-14 year old students range from concrete to abstract thinking.

Our biggest issue at present aside from fighting the CoN is fighting erroneous information. My students are asking in-depth questions. The country is fighting rumors and inflammatory news reporting, none of which help people get the accurate information they need to avoid transmission or understand the situation. This is not unique to China, as we see it in the Western world as well. Our biggest obstacles are fear and greed.

Tips to avoid Coronavirus/避免冠状病毒的提示

February 10, 2020 / global health / , , , , ,
Sign to SARS memorial in Hong Kong

This week my Mandarin homework was to write tips to avoid novel coronavirus. I cheated and used Google Translate at points, so don’t think that my Chinese is this good. Here is what I wrote (after editing from my teacher) in Chinese first and then English.  More importantly, please remember, I am not a doctor or scientist. I have written this assuming that the reader lives in a place with active coronavirus cases in their local area:

新型冠状病毒是一个严重的问题. 那些事情可能有助于保护您和您的家人. 

  1. 避免虚假新闻。会有很多谣言。听专家
  2. 如果附近有新的冠状病毒病例，请进行社交隔离。尽量在家工作吗？
  3. 经常洗手。避免触摸眼睛。
  4. 尽可能多的睡眠。照顾好自己的身体
  5. 注射流感疫苗。这将有助于您在流行病期间远离医生办公室。它还将帮助您避免同时感染新型冠状病毒和流感
  6. 如果您六十五多岁或患有哮喘，请与您的医生谈谈肺炎疫苗。

In order to keep you and your family safe from coronavirus, you should:

  1. Be careful to avoid Fake News, especially on social media. There are many rumors. It’s best to trust experts.
  2. Practice social isolation. Work from home if possible. If not, try to keep more distance from people at work.
  3. Wash your hands frequently.  Avoid touching your eyes.
  4. Get as much sleep as you can. Take good care of your overall health.
  5. Get a flu shot. This may keep you out of the doctor’s office where people are sick. It will also help to keep you from catching both the flu and the novel coronavirus at the same time.
  6. If you have asthma (or another respiratory disease) or are sixty-five or older, talk to your doctor about the pneumonia vaccine. This will help you to avoid pneumonia (and meningitis and other infections) even if you are never infected with the new coronavirus.

For the record, I have no tie to (or investments in) any company that makes vaccines for pneumococcal vaccines. You can also see the Center for Disease Control’s advice on this topic here. And you can see my blog post about nCoV and quarantine here. 

Shawn Smallman, 2020

 

Coronavirus data visualization

February 10, 2020 / Asia, data visualization, global health / , , , , ,

The South China Morning Post has an amazing data visualization related on the novel coronavirus outbreak and how it compares to the SARS epidemic. The data visualizations include a map of cases over time, graphs comparing the number of infections to SARS, point visualizations to illustrate the health status of coronavirus patients in China, maps to demonstrate the distribution and fatality rates of different infectious diseases compared to nCoV, an image of a person with a display of symptoms by body area, and a fascinating visual display showing where people from Wuhan traveled between the start of the lunar New Year and the imposition of quarantine, a map of the area around the seafood market where the outbreak began, a chart of the top ten international travel destinations from Wuhan, images of the kind of animals sold in the live market (who knew that it sold the Chinese giant salamander; and why are they selling the scolependra?), a labeled photograph of a live market vendor at work butchering a frog, a map of railway lines from Wuhan, a map of Chinese cities and lockdown and more. The page shows how data visualizations can be combined with art to convey information. Impressive work.

Caixin (this link is to global edition) and the South China Morning Post are doing outstanding work covering this epidemic. The New York Times has an excellent article talking about the Chinese media coverage of the epidemic in a broader context.

For anyone interested in more recent updates about this epidemic, you can also follow my Twitter feed. Lastly, I have a blog post about nCoV and quarantine here. 

Shawn Smallman, 2020

Coronavirus and Quarantine

February 10, 2020 / Asia, disaster, global health, Pandemics / , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Health education poster, Hong Kong. Photo by Shawn Smallman

As I write these words nurses in Hong Kong are on strike to protest the fact that the Chief Executive, Carrie Lam, will not close the border to China. To be clear, the executive has sharply restricted entry to Hong Kong, closed most crossings, and forbidden entry from the most affected Chinese state, Hubei.  But there are still strong calls for a complete border closure coming from within Hong Kong’s medical community.  Similarly, the United States has restricted flights from China to U.S. citizens only; some U.S. airlines had already canceled service to China. All such quarantine measures are controversial.

On social media, such as Twitter, and in the press, a number of experts have denounced all quarantines as being not only ineffective but also in violation of WHO guidelines. These authors worried about panic overcoming good judgement, the economic costs of restricting travel, the stigma imposed on those from affected areas (Chinese in particular, but also all Asia), and the importance of upholding International Health Regulations. These are valid and important points. Some authors have also pointed to studies based on computer models showing that quarantines are ineffective with highly contagious respiratory diseases.

Recently the tone has shifted in the discussion, as it has become clear that some cases of the virus are being spread asymptomatically. The number of cases has grown quickly. Some apparent facts (such as no human to human transmission) that seemed true in mid-January are no longer true. So the stridency of the debate about quarantine has declined, but the debate continues.

So is there any role for quarantines to manage such a pandemic? And is there some other way to make a judgement that relies less on computer models? I would suggest that looking at the past history of respiratory pandemics, such as the 1918 influenza pandemic, might be useful. Can history suggest particular circumstances in which quarantines may work? …

Coronavirus and QuarantineRead More »

Maps and the coronavirus outbreak

February 10, 2020 / global health / , , ,
Hong Kong Harbor. Photo by Shawn Smallman, 2017

As we track the spread of the coronavirus outbreak, it’s helpful to have maps and other data visualizations to understand the data.

One useful site is Ncov2019Tracking, which says that it: “taps into the Twitter Streaming API and monitors tweets mentioning keywords related to the Novel coronavirus (2019-nCov) outbreak. A machine learning system trained with the supervision of experts filters informative tweets. Geographical entities mentioned in tweets – such as country and city names – are identified using the GeoNames database and used to place tweets on a global map.” This tool provides a useful means to track where people are discussing the epidemic on Twitter. It’s very clear (based on the map on January 31, 2020) that there is a lot of discussion related to the coronavirus taking place that concerns Indonesia and the Philippines.

Researchers at Johns Hopkins Center for Systems Science and Engineering have also created an excellent map and dashboard which shows the geographical location of 2019-nCoV cases (we need a better name). A dashboard also shows total deaths (213 at today’s right), the total number of recovered (222 today) and the total number of confirmed cases (5,806). On the left hand side of the screen there is the total count of cases (9,925) and their geographical locations. At this time, there are 9,783 cases in mainland China, 19 in Thailand, 15 in Japan, and 13 in Singapore. There are also an eclectic group of countries that have a single case: Cambodia, Finland, India, Nepal, Philippines, Sri Lanka, and Sweden.

While technology has made it easier to track the outbreak, authorities in China are reportedly also using drones to chastise people who go out in public without masks, as this video purportedly shows. Lastly, you can read a blog post about quarantine and nCoV here, with some historical context on this question based on the 1918 influenza pandemic. 

Shawn Smallman, 2020

 

Coronavirus podcast

February 10, 2020 / Asia, global health / , , , ,
Window of Chinese medicine store in Hong Kong, China. Photo by Shawn Smallman

There is so much discussion of the coronavirus epidemic in the media that it can be hard to find reliable information. One good source of measured, thoughtful information is this podcast, “Coronavirus Infections—More Than Just the Common Cold,” which is an interview with Anthony, S Fauci, the director of the National Institute for Allergy and Infectious Disease. You can also find this podcast on Stitcher and other podcast platforms. To listen to it on Apple podcasts, please search for “JAMA Author interviews,” and go to January 27, 2020.

If you are interested in learning more about live markets, you can read my work here. And this blog posts discusses quarantine and nCoV based on some historical context from the 1918 influenza pandemic.

Shawn Smallman, 2020

Market Sign, Hong Kong. Photo by Shawn Smallman

 

 

The possible coronavirus pandemic

February 10, 2020 / global health / , ,
Hong Kong. Photo by Shawn Smallman

Even though it’s only been a few days, my last blog post is becoming out of date with amazing speed. This article in Eurosurveillance describes much of what we know to date. In Wuhan, China there is evidence that the corona virus outbreak is beginning to overwhelm the health care system. The New York Times has had disturbing videos taken from inside the hospitals, where dead people lay in the halls, and a patient begs a doctor to save her. He turns and strides away without a word. The South China Morning Post has incredible coverage of the outbreak. In one article, Mimi Lau described how desperately ill people were turned away from treatment at one overwhelmed hospital after another. Of course, it’s also important to note than in these hospitals, where health care workers are short on equipment, gloves, masks and medicines, people are still working to care for patients at great personal risk.

…

The possible coronavirus pandemicRead More »

Novel Coronavirus outbreak in China

February 10, 2020 / global health / , , , ,
Fighting SARS Memorial, Hong Kong, These busts and plaques commemorate health care workers who volunteered to fight SARS, and then sadly were infected and died. Photo by Shawn Smallman

As I write this blog post all travel has been banned in Wuhan, and two neighboring cities (Huanggang and Ezhou) in China. The cause for this travel ban is a novel coronovirus, which is currently called nCoV2019, although it will likely receive a new name soon. Coronaviruses are a virus that causes respiratory diseases, such as SARS in 2003, and MERS in the Middle East. SARS was a bat virus that passed through a civet cat at a Wet Market, and then jumped to humans. Although the outbreak was ultimately brought under control, it was contained at a very high cost. The Fighting SARS Memorial pictured above commemorates Hong Kong health care workers who died while serving their patients. …

Novel Coronavirus outbreak in ChinaRead More »

Vaccine refusal

September 4, 2019 / global health / , ,

Vaccine refusal is one of the most difficult health problems of our age. In the Democratic Republic of the Congo a terrible Ebola epidemic is raging -and has just had its first case in the major city of Goma- despite the existence of an effective vaccine. There have been outbreaks of violence directed against public health workers, which have made fighting the outbreak infinitely more difficult. But these workers are not alone. In Pakistan and Afghanistan polio cases are rising, and public health workers have faced threats, stigma and violence as well. Polio is appearing in tests in neighboring countries now, from southwestern China to Iran. While it’s easy to portray the people in these countries who refuse vaccination as being ignorant or uneducated, the truth is that in the United States, Canada and Europe we have a similar problem with vaccine refusal. As I discussed in another post, there was recently an outbreak of measles near Portland, Oregon, which was driven by low-vaccination rates. …

Vaccine refusalRead More »

Privacy & Cookies: This site uses cookies. See our Privacy Policy for details. By continuing to use this website, you agree to their use. If you do not consent, click here to opt out of Google Analytics.