What is not being said in the media, is that both Italy and Iran have signed on to the Chinese One Belt and One Road initiative. For a long period (years), Italy has had a sizable number of Chinese leather workers in Northern Italy making shoes and handbags. Today that number is around 100,000. So, supposing many went home for Chinese New Year (January 25th) and then came back to Italy to work?  We will let you connect the dots.

"The Italian governor of Lombardy is warning citizens to “stay home” because soon hospitals “will no longer be able to help those who get sick” with the Chinese coronavirus."

The new research (pdf), led by epidemiologist Dr. Neil Ferguson and published Monday by the Imperial College of London, shows that merely acting to slow rather than completely stop the spread of COVID-19 would "still likely result in hundreds of thousands of deaths and health systems (most notably intensive care units) being overwhelmed many times over."

Unless you have had Public Health Courses recently, you will learn a lot from this paper.

The commenter, Zekness, is a Canadian with a lot of knowledge of Medicine and Public health. We are posting his comments because of the risks that are not currently talked about. We might also make the comment that we have heard that the current test need to have a certain viral load in the body in order for the test to work. The current guidelines seem to indicate that the test need to be give 7-days after the onset of symptoms in order not to reflect a false negative. We added the bolding for emphasis. Thank you, Sundance and Zekness.

"zekness says:

Various updates for Monday from Zero Hedge.

"

The main symptoms of COVID-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus SARS-CoV-2, are fever, dry cough and shortness of breath. These look a lot like the flu and the common cold, so it takes a physician to determine if testing for the virus is necessary.

Initially, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommended testing only people with symptoms and who had potentially been exposed to the virus. But to the surprise of public health officials, several of the first people in the U.S. who tested positive for the virus had no obvious exposure. This development suggested that the virus was being transmitted locally, meaning it was spreading from person to person easily and/or that people may have been transmitting the virus without experiencing serious symptoms."  Thank You, Minnesota Sun.

"n the current environment, something not seen in America in living memory, the fear and panic of the Chinese coronavirus make it near impossible to look ahead. But while everyone who can is working on the “here and now,” it is vital that we think about how this situation came to be, what we can learn from it, and how the crisis we are now experiencing can be prevented in the future."  Thank You, Minnesota Sun.

"During a press conference on Saturday, Vice President Mike Pence announced that travel from the United Kingdom and Ireland will be suspended at midnight on Monday, but Americans and legal residents of the U.S. in those countries will be allowed to return to the United States."

"Africa is seeing a steady spread of the coronavirus across the continent, with four new countries confirming cases on Saturday, so that 23 of Africa’s 54 countries have COVID-19 patients."

" Spain´s government is set to announce Saturday that it is placing tight restrictions on movements and closing restaurants and other establishments in the nation of 46 million people as part of a two-week state of emergency to fight the sharp rise in coronavirus infections."

"

The government’s chief scientific adviser has said that 60 per cent of Britons need to catch coronavirus to develop “herd immunity” because the virus could return like the winter flu.

“We think this virus is likely to be one that comes year on year, becomes like a seasonal virus,” Sir Patrick Valance said.

“Communities will become immune to it and that’s going to be an important part of controlling this longer term. About 60 per cent is the sort of figure you need to get herd immunity,” he told Sky News on Friday."