Yes. There have been 2 in the Caribbean. Though neither has so far reported a positive test for novel corona virus. Just cases of respiratory disease. I can't blame the smaller islands though. They live and die by tourism this time of year. There is no way they can handle the economic effects of an outbreak.
Yes, but the ship itself remains infected. They can disinfect all they want, but that's of marginal use with people aboard.
Noro is a particularly difficult bug to kill. It lives in hard surfaces for decently long periods of time- like months. It’s not killed by standard sanitizers like Lysol- it basically require bleach.
It's unknown whether this virus spreads by contact transmission. The current advice from the CDC includes extensive instructions on hand washing, disinfecting surfaces, etc- so I'm assuming that they believe it could indeed spread by contact. Droplets don't just float through the air, they land on things. Things that people touch.
I think it is, though. The most recent thing I read this a.m. is that they thought it was spread through the ship's canteen. A few days ago there was a flurry of information that this coronavirus could also be spread via fecal/oral transmission, which would fit with that theory. Being spread through the canteen definitely is norovirus-on-ship level of mess.
The sense I get from the epidemiology/ID pros on twitter is that no one trusts their figures any longer, and that the situation is worse than previously thought. How much worse is unknown.
Wet markets seem to be the most common explanation. I've seen bats listed as the most likely transmitter though I also saw pangolins mentioned the other day. I find bats likely, they were the identified root of SARS and other infections but I hope it was pangolins. Perhaps that would stop people from eating an endangered species. Regardless of the animal, the basically unregulated wet markets are the most likely source of mutation and transmission.
As @jknezek mentioned, a bush animal source is likely. It is generally agreed that the infection didnt start in the Seafood Market, but was amplified there. Some of the earliest cases had no exposure to the market. Most agree it did have a single patient zero.
My big concern is that my son will be flying from Washington DC home from spring break in a month. They've repatriated hundreds if not thousands of Americans, who were living in China, through DC. He has an n95 mask for the ride home, though. Also, campuses are always great breeding grounds for whatever bug is around and it wouldn't surprise me if the school closed before the end of the semester. We shall see.
One of the other useful things you can do is ensure he wear glasses. Not wearing glasses does reduce the usefulness of the mask.
Thanks for that tip. Yes, he does wear glasses. Unfortunately, he has to learn not to fiddle with them.
